Saturday, January 28, 2012

The Journey of Henry. Sketchbook Project 2012.

It's complete and viewable on Flickr here!

Completed for the Sketchbook Project 2012, The Journey of Henry is a collection of sketches and hand carved stamp prints about the migration of a Short-tailed Shearwater. This oceanic bird spends months at sea during its flght around the Pacific. The books content includes visions and thoughts I associate with these birds, long journeys, wonders of the ocean and reflections on life itself.

Henry's namesake is, Henri Bourquin, one of my 16 ancestors who made the treacherous voyage by boat from Europe to Australia in the 1800's.

Thanks to Ben Vincent and Chris Dillon for providing the soundtrack of their music for the video below.





17 comments:

  1. Chantal, this is outstanding work in every way. The artwork, the hand carved stamps the quotes, the story telling, the presentation, beautiful in every way. This is the kind of work I would like to have on my coffee table to purely sit down and be inspired by. Thank you for sharing your creative journey.
    I hope you do more projects like this in the future. I am in awe of your talent.
    Anne xx

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    1. Such a wonderful compliment - thank you Anne! That its the kind of book you'd like to have about for inspiration warms my heart so much. Thanks for always being such a great support Anne. I hope to commit to the 2013 project now that I know I can finish one!

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  2. I've been watching your progress, seeing it all done now it's simply awesome! The prints go so sell with your sketches and the quotes. Great job :-)

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    1. Thank you so much! It was fun but challenging to find quotes that befitted the book and each pic - Glad you feel they matched well.

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  3. Oh my goodness!
    Such alot of wonderful work Chantal!XX

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    1. Thanks very much Jennie! Really glad to have it finished (just in time before school starts again!)

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  5. It's verty beautiful, I love your hand carved stamps, like carved lino, this project is simply wonderful.

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    1. Thank you Fab! I enjoy making the stamps so was great to be able to incorporate them into the sketchbook.

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  6. Congrats on the book! It looks wonderful!

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    1. Thanks very much Kathryn! Just reading of your inclusion in Uppercase Issue 12! Congratulations : )

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  7. Lovely!! I especially like the stamps.

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    1. Thanks Susan! Very pleased you like the stamps :)

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  8. Gorgeous work Chantal! I agree with Anne - the story telling really is wonderful, the way you set the scene with the map and the calendar, love it! And the stamps, illustrations and quotes - so great!

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    1. Thank you Emily! So glad you like the map and calendar concept - I wasn't sure how well they fitted in by the time I had put it all together so good to know they did not lose their place or value overall. Cx

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  9. Well done Chantal! A beautiful bird...

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    1. Thanks so much Kitty :) It was good to create whilst I was on holiday.. I see it would have been a challenge to get it done amidst normal day to day life.. as much as I like to think I can plan and execute such things in a timely manner, so many other things unexpected things take priority. I think that to some degree it wouldn't matter how much I had planned to do one page every two weeks when I had many months ahead of me.. if the creativitiy is not flowing I would not have been satisfied - and possibly more likely to want to change things later down the track. Leaving it to the last month meant I just had to do it and post it with no time to re-evaluate. Maybe I should sign up for 2012 to test my new theory!!

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